The Art of Creative Revision

In a society that values productivity, I’ve often grown frustrated with how long the creative process can take. It’s tempting to fast-track this process in order to write more poems, more quickly. But when I’ve done this, it’s resulted in:

• asking for feedback prematurely and getting discouraged.

• rushing into revisions without a clear vision.

• overworking a piece with edits that challenge or erase the piece’s original strengths.

I look back and see these acts coming from a desire to take control of a process that is, by nature, unwieldy and mysterious. It’s also been my experience that the habits and tools that promote efficiency in other kinds of work prove to be unusable and even detrimental when it comes to crafting poetry. One basic rule stands: a poem can’t be rushed.

Yet there are ways to make progress while allowing your poem the time and space it needs – and even nurturing some of its mysteries.

In this series, I will be introducing you to the process of creating a Revision Plan, a strategic method to steer the direction of your poem in future drafts. It will help you to better understand your intentions both as a writer and for your readers, make clear your vision, and discern which feedback and transformations align most with that vision.

Note that this differs from an editing plan where you would set out to fix punctuation, highlight verbs with the goal of strengthening them, or play with line breaks. While a Revision Plan takes into account the mechanics of language, it goes much deeper to the heart of what you’re trying to say in a poem and how best to say it, ultimately helping you to justify every decision you’ve made to create this work of writing. 

Ready to get started? All you need to do to start is take out a poem you want to revise. Read it again but this time with an eye for what you like about it. Make a list if there are a few things you admire, and keep those in mind as you click through to the next step.

I’m glad you’re here!